Centre warns against easing 20-week rule on abortion

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Monday informed the Supreme Court that the 45year-old Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, with the 2002 amendment, was adequate to handle pregnancy complications warranting abortion and warned against any general relaxation in the 20-week limit for termination of pregnancy.

Attorney general Mukul Rohatgi said, “The MTP Act with the amendment is equipped to handle emergent pregnancy situations. It permits termination of pregnancy at any stage if the fetus threatens a woman's life.“

However, sounding a note of caution, the AG said, “In India, female feticide and infanticide are very big problems. Any relaxation on fetus abnormality to permit abortion after the 20-week period would be prone to misuse.“

He said petitioner `Ms X', a Mumbai woman who got the SC's nod to terminate her pregnancy as multiple severe abnormalities in the fetus threatened her life, had also challenged the constitutional validity of Section 3(2)(b) of MTP Act that says a fetus can be aborted only up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.

However, Section 5 of the Act permits termination of pregnancy at any stage if registered medical practitioners feel that it would be life-threatening for the woman. This provision, in the context of India, was apt and equipped to handle emergent pregnancy situations.

A bunch of petitions, the first one filed by Nikhil D Datar in 2009 followed by many women, in the SC have alleged that the MTP Act permitted termination of pregnancy only if the fetus's health threatened the mother's life.

They said there were several occasions when the woman came to know about severe congenital abnormalities in a fetus after 20 weeks. Should she be forced by law to continue with the pregnancy even after knowing full well that the fetus would develop into a child with severe abnormalities, they had asked.

The petitioners had pleaded that the law should give equal weight to the abnormalities of fetus as well as health risk of the woman as grounds for termination at any stage on the basis of expert medical opinion.

“Foetal abnormalities in many cases are detected only after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Keeping the ceiling for abortion at 20 weeks in such cases is like telling the woman to undergo excruciating mental pain and agony as she knows that her child after birth will be born with serious deficiencies,“ they had said.

“Section 5 of the MTP Act allows abortion only when the pregnancy threatens the life of the woman and does not take into account mental trauma she would endure through the pregnancy in violation of her fundamental right to life on being forced to carry on with the pregnancy despite the knowledge of a flawed fetus,“ they had pleaded.

TIMES VIEW :

This is a change in the law that has been in the works for two years now. The health ministry had, in 2014, suggested amending the law to allow for abortions beyond 20 weeks in certain circumstances. Medical opinion and women's groups are agreed that such a change is needed. Global best practices too are in line with this opinion. Why then should it take so long for the idea to become reality? It is not as if this is a politically contentious issue. And the lives of many expecting mothers hang in the balance. Such important legislation should be fast-tracked.

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